Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: The Secretary of State has reiterated to the House this afternoon that our troops based in Iraq need the very best equipment for the 21st century. How does he respond therefore to the fact that the lives of our troops are being threatened by the problems with the new Bowman communication system and, worse still, by the undemanded firing of the Warrior tanks? What measures, other than posting warning notices of these failures, is the Ministry of Defence going to take considering that it has known about them for some while? The lives of innocent Iraqis and, worse still, the lives of our troops are being put at risk by equipment that is deficient.

Si�n Simon: When recently commissioning the large support vehicle, did the Minister prefer a foreign bidder disguised as a British bidder to a real British bidder based in Birmingham? Does the Minister think that that the Government are getting things the wrong way round? Should we not do what everybody else doespretend to look at the foreign bidders and actually commission the British bidder?

Andrew Dismore: What steps his Department is taking to commemorate the liberation of (a) Auschwitz and (b) Belsen. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Ivor Caplin): I am planning to attend the special commemorative events in Poland in January next year to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. A United Kingdom delegation and a group of UK schoolchildren will attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the memorial to those who died and will join other international guests for a service at Auschwitz camp. That important anniversary will also be marked by the publication on 27 January of a special booklet by the Ministry of Defence, which will explain the history of all the camps, and contain accounts from holocaust survivors.

Jack Straw: With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on Ukraine and the Middle East. Let me deal first with Ukraine. The international election observer mission led by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has concluded that the presidential elections held in Ukraine on 21 November were flawed. On that basis, we cannot accept that the process was either free or fair. The Ukrainian Parliament voted on Saturday by a two-thirds majority for the elections to be rerun. The Ukrainian Supreme Court has suspended official publication of the results and will begin its hearing of opposition challenges to them today.
	Meanwhile, the situation in the country remains fragile, with large-scale protests, strikes, blockades of Government buildings and civil disobedience. We urge all parties, including the authorities, to continue to show restraint. Our ambassador in Kiev is seeing the Ukrainian Interior Minister this afternoon with a message to that effect. We are giving active backing to the efforts of the EU presidency, High Representative Javier Solana and the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania to resolve the situation. I spoke again to Dr. Solana this morning.
	Let me make this clear. In any democratic election, the decision itself is one for the voters concerned, and for them alone. However, the international community has a clear right and responsibilityin this case, under obligations accepted by the Government of Ukraineto ensure that the process is a fair one and that the outcome reflects the will of the people.
	Let me turn now to Iran. Over the past two years, my French and German counterparts and I, working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, have led efforts to bring Iran into compliance with its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. Breaches of those obligations, including significant failures to disclose details of Iran's activities, have led to widespread anxiety in the international community about Iran's real intentions. Iran does have the right to pursue a nuclear programme for peaceful purposes, but it is legally barred by the NPT from pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.
	We three Foreign Ministersthe so-called E3visited Tehran on 21 October last year. On 5 and 6 November this year, officials from the E3, the EU and Iran reached an agreement in Paris under which Iran would suspend all its activities related to the most sensitive nuclear technologiesthat is, enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel. It is those technologies that allow for the production of weapons-grade material. The suspension would mean that negotiations could begin on long-term arrangements for Iran's civil nuclear programme. The Paris agreement requires that those arrangements should include objective guarantees that Iran's purposes are exclusively peaceful. I have placed a copy of the agreement in the Library.
	In parallel, under the agreement, negotiations would begin on areas where Europe and Iran could co-operateincluding on technology and commercial co-operationand on political and security issues of mutual interest. The EU and Iran would also resume negotiations on a trade and co-operation agreement, which had been held up because of European concerns on the nuclear issue.
	I spoke to my Iranian counterpart, Kamal Kharazi, last Tuesday, and to Dr. Hassan Rouhani, Iran's chief negotiator, by telephone last Friday. I stressed to both of them the importance of quickly implementing the Paris agreement in full. Following further talks in Vienna yesterday, Iran has written to the IAEA promising that 20 sets of centrifuge components, which Iran had sought to exclude from the suspension, should now be included. The agency's head, Dr. El-Baradei, is therefore able to state to the board today that suspension is being fully implemented. We tabled a resolution to the IAEA board yesterday evening and I learned before I came to the House that it has been agreed by consensus at the board in Vienna. Let me consider the conference on Iraq, which I attended last Monday and Tuesday in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. The conference brought together representatives from the Iraqi interim government and Iraq's neighbours, the G8, China and others including the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. I pay tribute to my colleague the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, for his skilful and effective preparation and chairmanship of the meeting. I am placing a copy of the final communiqu in the Library.
	As the House knows, in the past two and a half years I have participated in many international discussions on Iraq in the United Nations and elsewhere. Many of those debates have been acrimonious and difficult. In contrast, the Sharm el-Sheikh conference marked a genuine break with that atmosphere. There was a determination by all concerned to put the past behind us. For example, not a single delegate proposed delaying the elections that are due on 30 January in Iraq. The conference sent a clear and unanimous signal of support for the political process in Iraq, based on UN Security Council resolution 1546, and specifically for those elections.
	In my intervention at the conference, I explained that we would be working for successful elections inIraq through three things: efficient election administration, on which the Iraqis and the UN are doing exceptional work in difficult circumstances; promoting full participation by all parts of Iraqi society, regardless of ethnic or sectarian background; and, of course, working for the best possible security.At the conference, Iraq's neighbours also agreed to intensify their co-operation to control their borders with Iraq, so as to stop infiltration by terrorists and insurgents. Interior Ministers will meet in Tehran tomorrow to pursue that.
	Directly after the Iraq conference, I visited Israel and the occupied territories last Wednesday and Thursday. In Israel, I had several hours of highly constructive talks with my counterpart, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Leader of the Opposition Shimon Peres and a wide range of Israeli parliamentarians.
	In Ramallah, in the occupied territories, I laid a wreath on the grave of the late President Yasser Arafat. I saw Prime Minister Abu Ala', Chairman of the PLO Abu Mazen, and Ministers Nabil Sha'ath, Salam Fayyad and Sa'eb Erekat.
	The past few years have been profoundly tragic and depressing for Israelis and Palestinians alike, with many deaths and injuries on both sides and a climate of fear and suspicion. For those in the region, most dawns in the recent past have proved false. However, I have to tell the House that the change of atmosphere for the better on both sides is now palpable.
	Several factors have contributed to that: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's courageous plan for disengagement from Gaza and the northern west bank; the opportunity of fresh elections in the Palestinian Authority and President Bush's explicit commitment, during my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's visit to Washington, to use America's political capital to give new impetus to the road map. Everywhere I went, there was a real appreciation for the Prime Minister's and all the UK's efforts to assist the peace process, as well as for our wider work in the region.
	The immediate priority is the Palestinian Authority presidential elections on 9 January. The UK, both bilaterally and through the EU, will provide material support for those elections and participate in an EU observation mission.
	Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told me that for those elections Israel would ensure freedom of movement and remove any other obstacles as far as security permitted and allow residents of east Jerusalem to vote. He confirmed that the Israeli Government would want to operate according to broadly the same arrangements as were agreed for the 1996 Palestinian elections, and said that Israel would accept international monitoring for the elections. I also discussed all those issues with members of the Palestinian election commission in Ramallah.
	The Palestinian Ministers whom I met during my visit readily acknowledged the need to rise to the challenges presented by Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the northern west bank, and to exploit the opportunity for progress that we now have. They were conscious of the need for thoroughgoing reforms of Palestinian institutions, as a crucial step in building the conditions for a viable, democratic Palestinian state.
	I was encouraged by the strong commitment on the part of the new Palestinian leadership to improving security arrangements in the occupied territories. They described this to me as a commitment to make a 100 per cent. effort on security. And they recognised that such an effort is vital for dealing with the rejectionists and terrorists who may well seek to derail progress in future peace negotiations, and for maintaining order and security in the Palestinian territories themselves, particularly in the run-up to the elections.
	I made clear our continuing strong support for Palestinian security reform. I visited the central operations room in Ramallah, which the United Kingdom has financed, and was able to observe the security effort that the Palestinians were putting in place.
	We in the international community, as friends of the Israelis and the Palestinians, now need to do all we can to help both sides to seize the opportunities for progress and to restart the peace process laid out in the road map and Security Council resolution 1397, leading to a secure state of Israel alongside a viable state of Palestine. I believe that the whole House agrees that ending this decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians would be a huge contribution to stability and peace not just in the region, but worldwide. For that reason, this is of the highest priority for the British Government.

Menzies Campbell: There is much in this compendious statement that one can support. In particular, I offer my continuing support, and that of my right hon. and hon. Friends, for the Government's policy on Iranand, if I can be forgiven a seasonal reference, I congratulate the three wise men of the EU on their achievements in that connection.
	May I also offer my support for the determination to hold to the election date of 30 January in Iraq? Any postponement would be a damaging blow to progress and would hand an enormous propaganda victory to the insurgents.
	Turning to the Ukraine, in an uncharacteristically delphic passage, the text of the Foreign Secretary's statement says:
	The international community has a clear right and responsibility, under obligations accepted by the Government of Ukraine, to ensure that the process
	the election process
	is a fair one and that the outcome reflects the will of the people.
	Exactly what does the Foreign Secretary mean to convey by that, and how does he believe that those rights and responsibilities may have to be exercised?
	On the middle east, obviously everyone will welcome the opportunity that now presents itself, but the Foreign Secretary has rightly been at pains to point out that there have been many opportunities in the past and that many hopes have been dashed. Warm words will not do; progress in realistic terms is obviously essential. On a particular matter arising from that, did the right hon. Gentleman seek any assurances that in the event of deterioration in the security situation during the weeks leading up to the election, any measures taken in response would be proportionate?

Brian Iddon: I welcome my right hon. Friend's visit to Palestine and Israel, but when he received reassurances about the future of the settlers who are to be relocated from the west bank, did he seek or receive any reassurances about the homes that they will leave behind? Will they be used to rehouse the thousands of Palestinians whose homes have been demolished?

Orders of the Day
	  
	Debate on the Address
	  
	[Fourth Day]

David Blunkett: No, no. If you are asked to produce your driving licence and you do not have it, you are asked to attend a police station with it. If you attend a bank and the bank wants to check your identity, it will accept an ID card. If you do not produce an ID card, it will expect to see a passport or some other immediate form of identification. The question has been put, If you want to get a passport, will you have to produce your ID card? No; when people get a passport, they will get an ID card, which is the point of the system. They will not have to carry the ID card everywhere they go, but they may well choose to do so.
	On Second Reading, which will occur before Christmas, I hope to disentangle and demystify the proposals in the Bill. The process has been a struggle and we have consulted on the matter for the past three yearson 14 December, it will be three years since the issue was first raised with me on Radio 4. A Sub-Committee of the Cabinet first considered the matter in January 2002; then we had a major consultation; then a draft Bill was produced for scrutiny; and now we have a Bill. Around 80 per cent. of the population are up for it and are on board. It is sad that those who are paid as professional politicians to study such things seem to understand less and lessand here is one of them.

David Blunkett: Certainly, there is a big problem, and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins) is aware of the way in which people are moved, often at a crucial moment. I accept entirely that that is a challenge for the service, including the Youth Justice Board. When detention orders have been issued and youngsters have perhaps been in secure training centres, we need to consider imaginatively how electronic tracking can allow us to release them under very strict supervision to follow those courses. At the Youth Justice Board conference, at which I chose not to speak but to have a dialogue with the young people on the platform, it was remarkable how those young people who have been through the system felt that being there long enough, and having that security long enough, was an absolutely key element in their future well-being. That took me aback, and the hon. Gentleman's contribution is therefore apposite.
	We are not confining the proposals in the Queen's Speech to personal protection or the normal criminal justice law. As we have spelled out alreadyI want to make it clear that we will do this by Christmaswe will introduce the draft Bill for scrutiny on corporate manslaughter. That is a cross that I have learned to bear in terms of finding my way through the labyrinth of getting agreement on such an extraordinarily complex area. I am therefore looking forward to Father Christmas delivering it in time, and I hope that it will at least satisfy some people, even if it does not satisfy everyone.
	One Bill brings a joy to me, because it is not about enforcement, security or organised crimeit is about the way in which we can encourage people to give of themselves, their time and their service and to join together in voluntary and community organisations. That is the charities Bill. Making a difference to people's lives is what all of us in the House, of every party, are here for. Providing service and making a difference to people's lives is part of civil renewal and civil society. We need a new relationship between the political democracy that we hold dear, and the civil democracy, in which people participate in their communities, in their neighbourhoods, and in the lives and well-being of their families and others, to give support and to give their time, backed, not run, by Government. The charities Bill is intended to modernise and reform the outdated laws that we have.
	Taken together, the Queen's Speech is about the citizen, identity, protection, organised crime and protecting us from new ills and new threats, as well as dealing with old ones. Above all, it is about examining the vision of the future, and being prepared and strong enough to take on that future, and to take the right measures now to secure our nation.

David Davis: I will give way in a moment.
	After all, how can one describe as anything other than deeply confused a policy that, on one hand, talks in a disapproving way about drugs, but on the other, seeks to declassify cannabis? Young people took the move as a signal that the Government were telling them that it is okay to smoke cannabis. That is probably why last week's European drugs report showed that Britain's 15-year-old boys smoke more cannabis than those in any other country. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) says from a sedentary position that that is out of date. I suggest that she read not just her own Department's publications, but those of the Department of Health, which is a touch more up to date than she is.
	The Metropolitan police also admit that more people are being caught with cannabis, but fewer are being arrested. That is the effect of the Government's decision to reclassify that dangerous and addictive drug. Yet in this pre-election Queen's Speech, more than 10 years after the Prime Minister first promised to be tough on the causes of crime, the Government suddenly promise a crackdown on drugs.

John Denham: In the brief time I have available, I should like to deal with two of the major criticisms that have been made of the Government's proposals in the Queen's Speech. That unfortunately means that I will not have time to deal with the criticisms made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis). His speech was a disgraceful performance. He abandoned any pretence of making an overall assessment of the Government's record to date. It is of course fine to point to areas where crime has not gone down, but only if proper credence is given to the fact that, according to the British crime surveythe best measurecrime overall has come down substantially under this Government and that that is an achievement of this Government. The chance of being a victim of crime is at its lowest level since the British crime survey began. Not only did he disgracefully not even acknowledge that reduction, he did not begin to say how the 1.7 billion-worth of cuts in the Home Office budget that his party proposes would help build on the success so far.
	The criticisms that have been made of the Queen's Speech fall into two categories. One is that the Government are playing with the politics of fear. The other is that of the liberal left and has been made, among others, by Baroness Kennedy in a recent article in The Guardian. I want to touch briefly on both.
	I do not believe that there is any evidence that the Government are playing on the politics of fear. Indeed, it would be a dangerous game for Governments even to attempt to do so. That is something for Oppositions, as we have seen this afternoon. The major measures in the Loyal Addressthe Identity Cards Bill, the creation of the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the introduction of the National Offender Management Systembuild on the real achievements of the past few years, and each addresses a clearly identified problem and need in an appropriate way. There will be much to do to scrutinise the detail of that legislation, but I do not see how any of those measures can be seen as trying to whip up a fear of crime.
	The more fundamental criticism made from a liberal left perspective, and often reflected in our media, is that the Government are in some way indulging in a fundamental act of illiberalism; in a wholesale sweeping away of freedoms and protections; in a casting aside of principle; in using the excuse of terrorism, asylum seekers and criminals; and in exploiting fear to encourage people to sacrifice freedom and privacy. Those are all criticisms made by Baroness Kennedy in The Guardian last week. I hold no personal grudge against her; she is an eminent lawyer and she puts the case articulately.
	We need to respond not because those views are necessarily held by the population as a whole, but because there is an influential body of opinion that agrees with her and, indeed, regards that criticism of the Government as an unchallengeable truth. That leads some people to say, Perhaps we just have to go along with this Government because the other things they do are good. That view needs to be challenged, because those of us who believe that we take a liberal left position and who are on the centre-left of politics should feel comfortable with the Government's agenda. At its heart, it is a progressive one. The view that the proposals are fundamentally illiberal is a sweeping assertion that does not stand up to analysis. It disguises and covers up the reasons why the Government have developed their approach.
	It was argued last week by Baroness Kennedy that just law is
	the mortar that fills the gaps between nations, people and communities, creating a social bond without which the quality of our lives would be greatly undermined.
	I agree with that, but to create that social bond, the legal and criminal justice system must be seen to work and must enjoy public confidence. It is not good enough to assert that our system is the best available if every member of the public can point to its failings.
	The conflict that has emerged under this Government is between measures that are designed to tackle specific failings in the system and a legal and judicial system that at times appears either to deny or ignore the problems. In past criminal justice Bills, the Government have had to address court delays, the causes of cracked and failed trials, the unnecessary adjournments for reasons of tactics or personal convenience, and management of the system that left so many witnesses feeling as if they were on trial. Too few people in the criminal justice system were prepared to admit or tackle those problems. The Government have been forced to deal with the consequences of the major legal development of my lifetimethe parallel system of decision making developed entirely by the courts, with no reference to Parliament, in judicial review. There are few areas of government that cannot be challenged, usually at public expense, under that procedure.
	We are told that we worry too much about terrorism. As Baroness Kennedy puts it, there is
	fear-inducing rhetoric about international terrorism.
	It was not rhetoric that killed so many people on 13 March this yearit was terrorism in a European capital city like our own. It is convenient for some people to speak as if terrorism is a rhetorical trick by the Government, thus avoiding the harsh and difficult questions about what we want to do and what decisions we want our Ministers to face. It is not wrong to work to secure the asylum system and tackle illegal immigration. If just law contributes to a social bond, it should underpin the essential fairness that we need in a strong society. If we want people to support fair taxes for decent public services, we must ensure that those services are not used by individuals who are not entitled to them. If we want to balance a market economy with decent rights at work, we must ensure that good employers and legal employees are not undercut by unscrupulous individuals. To do so, and to tackle terrorism, we need a robust system of identification and serious action against people traffickers, so we should welcome the initiatives in the Queen's Speech, because they help to provide the social bonds that unite us as a society with progressive values.
	We need good law to provide the foundations of a strong society that can offer good public services and decent protections at work. We want a society that does not turn its back on others, but manages both economic migration and refugees legally and soundly, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary seeks to do. The problem with being told that the whole exercise is illiberal is that it may deflect us from the proper examination of specific issues, including oversight of the identity card scheme, the practical use of terrorism powers and the way in which the police use the new general power of arrest. Rather than just claiming that the Government are involved in a big illiberal exercise, the House should scrutinise those individual issues and make sure that we get them right.

Mark Oaten: I shall make a little progress.
	The Liberal Democrats are profoundly uncomfortable about holding individuals in Belmarsh without charging them. Seeking a way in which they can be charged should be a priority. The Home Secretary will have noted the UN's remarks on the subject over the weekend. We will consider effective measures on terrorism, but I hope that he will allow us, without too much criticism, to keep talking about the principles of liberty and justice in that debate.
	I shall move on to other measures in the Queen's Speech on which there will be wide agreement. There is agreement on the Liberal Democrat Benches about the establishment of SOCAthe Serious Organised Crime Agency. I hate the name, which does not sound macho enough, but the idea is a good one. The world has moved on. It has become much more complex than ever before. Criminals operate globally and have techniques and tactics that require a different response. SOCA is a sensible way forward. It is no longer good enough to require forces throughout the country to have the skills and knowledge base to deal with that type of crime. Attached to the Bill, however, as ever in the Home Office, are other measures. When we get to that debate, which I believe is next week, we will want to understand more about the powers for fingerprint before arrest. Those could be measures that are helpful, save police time and enable them to deal speedily with identification, but we will want reassurances that measures put in place to protect individuals who are fingerprinted after arrest will also be applicable to the powers to fingerprint prior to arrest.
	We welcome the measure to introduce a civilian custody officer. That could allow the police to get out of the station and on to the street, which we have long argued for. As long as proper training is available, that is a sensible measure. I have some concerns about the additional powers proposed in the Bill for community support officers. It has long been our view that they are valuable but they are not the same as fully trained police officers. The more powers are tagged on to them, the closer CSOs get to becoming police officers, but without all the advantages and protection of proper training. We will want to examine that proposal.
	Sensible measures are proposed with regard to protests outside Parliament, but I am uncomfortable with the idea of banning a protest outside Parliament because of its visual impact. Arguing that visual impact is a ground for removing a protester is disappointing. After all, where else in a democracy should one be able to hold a banner and register a protest?
	The contracting-out of antisocial behaviour orders, which is dealt with in SOCA, causes some concern. I would not want that to end up as the sort of money-making scheme that resulted from individuals having the power to issue parking tickets, for example. We unreservedly welcome the power to get rid of uninsured vehicles more quickly. That is a matter with which all Members of Parliament have had to deal in their constituencies.
	Finally on SOCA, we have concerns about the lines of accountability. Both the National Criminal Intelligence Service and the National Crime Squad, the agencies that will merge to form SOCA, reported to the service authority and there was a line of accountability there. SOCA will report to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is accountable not to Parliament, but to the Prime Minister. On Second Reading and in Committee, perhaps we can examine the lines of accountability. I should have thought that it would make sense for the agency to have some accountability to Parliament and perhaps for the Home Affairs Committee to have a role in looking at its work.
	I am conscious that other colleagues want to speak, but there are other Bills that I want to touch on. On the management of offenders, I welcome the wording in the Gracious Speech on the importance of tackling reoffending. That concerns me greatly. If there is one measure we can take to tackle crime, it is to stop more than half of those who leave prison committing another crime. The prison population is a captive audience and a great deal can be done with them. The hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) was right when he spoke about the need to tackle education issues. He mentioned joining up education so that individuals who move from prison to prison can continue their courses. I draw attention to the inability of prisoners to finish a course when they leave prison. I remember meeting a hairdresser training in a prison, who said to me, I'm being released in three weeks' time. I said, That's wonderful news, isn't it?, and she said, No, it's not. I want to finish my course. I'd like to stay here for another two months because I can't finish my course anywhere else. That is nonsense. We need to examine such issues if we are to tackle reoffending.
	The National Offender Management Service, as is known, has been controversial. That is largely because of the way that it was launched. We want reassurances from the Government that the proper resources are being provided so that, as powers are required for probation to do more, there is the resource and back-up to enable the service to do that effectively. We welcome the Home Secretary's useful phrase of prison without bars. I believe that tagging has a role to play. In this context, I disagree with the shadow Home Secretary. Keeping people out of prison who have committed non-serious crimes is more effective than putting them into a situation where more than half of those who have been incarcerated come out and commit more crimes.
	The Home Secretary did not refer to antisocial behaviour orders, and there is another ASBO measure in the Queen's Speech. Thankfully, it has nothing to do with the Home Office this time. Another Department will have responsibility for it. ASBOs will have our support, as they always have, if they are matched with sensible measures that deal not only with issuing punishment but with enabling us to tackle why the individuals concerned got into difficulties in the first place. Punishment should be matched with sensible measures to stop people reoffending.
	We will support many of the sensible measures to which the Home Secretary referred that deal with drugs, but I have concerns about the ability to access proper treatment. The Home Secretary referred to the matter on several occasions, and we have no disagreement with him, but the evidence is that there is still difficulty in accessing treatment and getting individuals who are prepared to take part in that process. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware of the disappointing figures from the Prison Service only last week that showed that about 51 per cent. of treatment programmes in prison had collapsed. If we cannot manage a treatment programme in a situation where the individuals concerned cannot go anywhere else, it does not bode well for programmes that are to be run in the community. It is important that resources are made available.
	The Home Secretary did not mention his proposals on juvenile services. We welcome them. It is one of the areas in which the Government have done excellent work. I have seen the projects and there are many lessons that can be learned from the way in which they are being handled in terms of early prevention that could be transferred elsewhere.
	The Home Secretary will not be surprised to hear that the one area of difference relates to the Bill on identification cards. The Bill was published early this afternoon. As indicated earlier, there will be an opportunity before Christmas to consider it on Second Reading. I shall reserve my main comments until then. We shall want to talk about costs. I am still unclear where the costs are heading. At one level, I am pretty convinced that the figure is about 3 billion, but press and academic reports tell me that the figure is heading for about 10 billion.
	The Home Secretary promised the Home Affairs Committee on 2 November that he would publish a regulatory impact statement. I am not sure whether that has been published this afternoon. We will obviously want to study it with interest to ascertain the Government's assessment of the costs. It is not clear to me whether the Government are including in their figures the potential costs of the readers, which could be used throughout public services.

Mark Oaten: I was basing the cost on Home Office figures that have been given to us. I shall be happy to give the hon. Gentleman the audit trail. The costs change every day when we ask the Home Office different questions. That is largely because the spec changes. I think that I am making a conservative estimate by saying 3 billion. Various press articles have referred to 10 billion. Much depends on whether we include in the costs the simple cost of making the identity card or whether added on to that cost are the implications of having a reader in, for example, every hospital, post office or benefit office. Until we know the detail of how widely the Government plan to use the system, I cannot give an accurate estimate. That is why I am saying that the cost will be somewhere between 3 billion and 10 billion.
	Why have I changed my mind on this issue? The answer is that I examined it in more detail and I am not convinced of the merits of the proposal. I freely admit that I was one of those who used to say, If you have nothing to hide, why does it matter?. As I have said, I have changed my mind. Sometimes, when people change their minds, they become firmer. I am clear that I am opposed to the measure.
	When we reach the debate on ID cards, I want to examine the issue of biometrics and their effectiveness, on which I think we shall have an interesting debate. Various tests have shown that there is a failure rate or error rate of between 2 and 5 per cent. on the facial scans that are involved. Given that so much emphasis is being put on technology, I will need great reassurance that the technology being used for biometrics is accurate.
	There is also the issue of individuals who can come to the country for three months, on holiday, and not needing a form of identity. How will that work in terms of some of the controls? There is also the point that the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden made very well about the Government's track record on computer programmes. We will need a great deal of convincing about the effectiveness of the programmes and on the issue of data. We will need reassurance about where that data will be available.
	We will want carefully to probe the timescale. I see emerging a system that is neither compulsory nor voluntary. As we work through a rolling programme over the next 10 years of when individuals have to change their passports, even in five or six years' time less than half of the population will be covered by the scheme. However, half the country will have had to get an ID cardthey will be compulsorywhile the other half will not be in that position. We are heading for chaos and misunderstanding, particularly if the plan is to roll the scheme out to include benefit access. There will be great confusion. At the end of the day, even by the Home Secretary's own admission, it will be another 10 or 12 years before everyone will have one of the cards.
	Do the Government plan to use the system to include health and benefit fraud? I understand that the largest amount of benefit fraud that takes place does not involve people pretending to be somebody else but people pretending to have something that they do not have. I do not know why we are introducing a system to tackle a problem that I do not believe exists and about which I believe that the Department for Work and Pensions is uneasy. It is odd that a study that has been commissioned by the Department is being considered but has not been made public. I would welcome a reassurance that the report that it has commissioned to ascertain whether it could use ID cards in relation to benefits will be made public. In Committee, it would be useful to know what a Department that could benefit from the system thinks about its potential use.
	We will want carefully to probe how the power of arrest will be used in relation to ID cards. The Home Secretary said on the Dimbleby programme on Sunday, I think, that people will not be arrested for not having a card with them. I accept that, if that is what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Gillian Shephard: It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who always, absolutely without exception, has something original to say, and I hope that those on the Labour Front Bench have listened carefully to his strictures.
	A number of speakers have already made it clear that many of the measures in the Gracious Speech are welcome. I myself would, rather ungraciously, say that they would be even more welcome if more than a handful of them stood a chance of reaching the statute book before the date on which The Sun newspaper has said the election will be held. It would be instructive to hear from Ministers which measures they expected to stay the course and which, after all the hype, were only soundbites.
	The Prime Minister himself helpfully pointed out that
	There are still far too many victims of crime,
	and that he is determined to ensure that
	we have respect and responsibility back on the streets and in the communities of Britain.[Official Report, 23 Nov 2004; Vol. 428, c. 23.]
	Everyone would agree with both statements.
	I remind Ministers that eight Bills in the Gracious Speech have implications for police resources; admittedly, three of them are draft Bills. I draw Ministers' attentionI need not draw the attention of the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, because she was thereto a useful debate that took place in Westminster Hall on 10 November, when hon. Members from all parties pointed out the serious funding problems already faced by police authorities across the country. The Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety said that
	There are several imponderables in our current position on police funding.[Official Report, 10 November 2004; Vol. 426, c. 296WH.]
	All former Ministers understand that imponderables always exist when one approaches the pre-Budget report; we used to call it the autumn statement.
	Obviously, we all realise that announcements on police funding are due to be made shortly, but unless substantial additional funds are made available, it would be beyond the ability of many police authorities, including my own, to cope if any of the eight Bills were to reach the statute book.
	The number of police officers in Norfolk has increased, which is welcome; less welcome is the fact that the council tax increase over the past four years to pay for that growth is nearly 66 per cent., and this year's budget alone accounts for a 13.5 per cent. increase in council tax. Norfolk police authority faces a particular problem in funding its pension obligations. The Government have made it clear that it will cap council tax increases, and Norfolk only narrowly escaped capping last year.
	In the Westminster Hall debate, hon. Members from both sides of the House acknowledged that most police authorities needed about a 5.5 per cent. increase just to stand still. In Norfolk, if we are lucky, the calculation is that we shall have an increase of between 3 and 4 per cent., so we will be adrift by around 1 per cent. of meeting the obligations in existing legislation. If the Government are serious about the Gracious Speech, Ministers must convince us that they will make available to police authorities the means to bring about the improvements that they claim they wish to see in place; otherwise, it is only talk.
	I want to comment on a specific measure in the Gracious Speech that the Home Secretary did not mention, perhaps because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is dealing with it; namely the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Bill. The Bill was helpfully trailed in The Times on 29 October by the Prime Minister himself, with a headline claiming Yobs face parish council fines. Everybody welcomes the measures in that Bill. Most hon. Members will find that the problems of fly-tipping, graffiti, yobbish behaviour, noisy neighbours and other kinds of antisocial behaviour such as abandoned cars are among the most intractable, even if they are not the most serious, in their postbags. Although ASBOs have the right intention, they have probably not been as effective as Ministers had hoped; fewer have been issued than expected and 36 per cent. have been breached. They have been criticised as too complex because they require police case conferences, consultations and all the rest.
	I am enthusiastic because the Bill will give more local authorities, and indeed the police, powers to deal with those various nuisances. I understand that powers that have already been given to district and unitary authorities will be extended to parish councils. Ministersthe Minister who replies this evening may want to respond to this pointmight give some thought as to how practical those proposals are for average parish councils.
	Norfolk has 550 parish councils, and the average parish council has an annual income of about 7,000 a year. When one takes into account what that must be spent ongrass cutting, street lighting, the clerk's payment, a car scheme to pay volunteers to drive people to hospital, water rates, insurance, repairs, sundries and other thingsthere is not an awful lot left to pay a member of staff to issue on-the-spot fixed penalty fines.
	Mr. James Booty, chairman of Northwold parish council in the centre of the my constituency, thinks that the clerka lady of at least my agemight not welcome that addition to her duties. The average income, which is painfully extracted and meticulously accounted for, would not stretch to employing a new kind of parish constable.
	The new power is good, and it may be possible for larger parishes and town councils to provide that service at a cost. However, no parish council of an average size anywhere in my county will be able to provide it. Given travel costs and the distance between communities, joining forces to provide such a service is not a practical proposition.
	I know that the constituency represented by the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety is in Greater Manchester. Will she carefully examine communities that are different from the one that she represents? Such communities are just as bothered by graffiti, fly-tipping and abandoned cars as those represented by Labour Members. I hope that she will give some thought as to how the proposal, which is good, might work in a rural area such as mine, otherwise hon. Members who represent rural areas will be forced to conclude that the new powers are not for us.

Tony Wright: In the short time available, I want to consider two subjects. The first is nannies, if I may be so indelicate as to mention them, and the second is the politics of behaviour.
	I mention nannies because it is said that the Government and especially the Home Office are the architects of the nanny state. It is always interesting to hear Conservative Members speak about nannies because they have had more experience of them than Labour Members, so it is strange that their conclusion is so negative when ours is rather positive. Perhaps those who have had them view them differently from those who have not. We see them as people who protect, look after and nurture, especially when others in life are absent. We are therefore puzzled by the way in which the nanny state is attacked.
	In the past, the nanny state was invoked to attack a range of progressive measures. It was invoked to protect the intimacy of family life and enable men to treat women as chattels. Intruding into such a relationship was seen as terrible interventionism. When the state tried to intrude into employment relationships to stop sweated labour or exploitation in the workplace, we were told that that constituted terrible intervention in the contracts of employment. When the state intervened to protect consumers against being ripped off by producers, we were told that that was an infringement of basic caveat emptor principles. Even now, we are sometimes told that having a Food Standards Agency to protect people and ensure that food is properly labelled so that people know what they are eating is some sort of nannyish interventionism, or that setting up a Financial Services Authority so that people are not ripped off the by mis-sellings of the financial services industry is inappropriate nannyish intrusion.
	In all those cases, if the state does not act, what is left is not an oasis of private freedom but private power. My approach to identity cards is broadly the same. The state's job and that of public power, acting in the public interest, is to harness and tame private power. The state is called on to do that, and a democratic Parliament is asked to do that, too. I want a state that makes freedom a practical reality for most people. That means an active state, and so, on the nanny state, I say bring it on. We need it to act in the way that it does.
	My second point picks up on some of the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks) made about the politics of behaviour. The subject goes beyond the routine party exchanges and invites us to consider more widely some of the issues that underpin the measures proposed in the Queen's Speech. Frankly, we have a problem and we all know it. In the past generation or two, society has advanced in all sorts of ways. People are richer, they can do more, they consume more, they travel more and their access to everything has increased. Yet alongside that, two other things have happened.
	First, there has been an erosion of what could be described as the civic infrastructure. That is why we complain about the loss of community. We feel that something has gone. It is not surprising that some of the older people in our society feel that most acutely, because they rememberand tell ushow it used to be.
	Secondly, a behavioural revolution has happened. If we are honest, we will admit that we have witnessed a coarsening of our society in all sorts of ways. It goes beyond the way in which one party attacks another, and invites us to examine matters with a much longer perspective and consider some of the large causes. Most people would accept that something profound has happened to the traditional authority structures in our society, especially to the major institution of the family.
	We can play the figures endlessly but I shall give one version. Almost 90 per cent. of children born in 1958 still lived, at the age of 16, with both natural parents. For children born in 1970, the figure was down to 82 per cent. For children born in 198485, it was down to 65 per cent. In a quarter of a century, a 25 per cent. drop occurred in the number of children who live with their natural parents at the age of 16. That must have an impact on the quality of relationships and of life in our society. That is reflected in the crime figures.
	Almost all the other indicators in our society in the past generation or two have moved in the right direction, but crime has not. I am not considering only the past few years, when the Government have a good record. Since 1950, crime has increased tenfold. Violent crime has increased by 1,375 per cent. Why do we spend so much time discussing what is happening to our town centres? Why do we spend so much time talking to our constituents about the fact that they feel fearful in their streets and neighbourhoods? Because they do: the fear is not invented; the quality of their lives has deteriorated.
	We should be ashamed that beautiful foreign cities are tortured by the booze cruisers from this country and that 75 per cent. of admissions to accident and emergency departments at the weekend are caused by people who are fuelled by alcohol. We see what is happening all around us, and it comes down not to what a Government or party do but to behaviour in our society, which is reflected in the media, where images of violencetrivial, casual violenceare pumped out round the clock. On EastEnders, people shout at each other. When they do not shout at each other, they hit each other. Such images are constantly pumped out.
	My comments are abbreviated, but I conclude that it is no wonder that the politics of behaviour has come to the top of the political agenda. However, if Government are being asked to fill the gaps that the decline in other institutions leaves, can they do it? The answer is that I do not know, but if they do not try, they will be letting down the people we represent

James Clappison: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because he has made an important point about the Government's proposals. I look to them for an answer on this question: is it their case that something inherent in the technology that they are using is preventing them from introducing identity cards on a faster time scale? If so, I look forward to hearing about that from them. If they have decided on this leisurely introduction for other reasons, we must take that very seriously indeed.
	I want briefly to discuss some other issues that have been raised, two in particular. The one issue that my constituents put to me more than any other is the fact that they would like to see more police out on the streets and more police tackling crime. I am sure other hon. Members have heard the same thing. On the question of numbers, the Home Secretary has again this afternoon, as has the Prime Minister on a number of occasions, spoken of the increased numbers under his stewardship. The more I hear the Home Secretary talking about the increase in police numbers, the more I think he is launching a savage attack on his predecessor, because for every year between 1997 and 2002 police numbers in England and Wales were lower than those inherited by this Government.
	At the beginning of the debate on the Queen's Speech, the Prime Minister said to one of my hon. Friends:
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman would agree that 12,500 extra police officersrecord numbers of police officers and community support officersis something that the Government can be very proud of.[Official Report, 23 November 2004; Vol. 428, c. 23.]
	He happily lumped police officers and community support officers together, but does that mean that he should have felt shame just before the last general election

James Clappison: Oh dear. I think it was a mistake to give way to the hon. Gentleman. He is being selective, as the Prime Minister is being selective, about police numbers. I shall come to another issue on which the Government are being very selective, but my constituents in Hertfordshire have had the worst of all worlds: there has been the substantial increase in police precepts, which the hon. Gentleman might be aware of and which has certainly taken effect in other parts of the country, as well as other forms of taxation, yet we are not getting fair treatment from the Government over police funding, because we have lost out under the police funding formula, which was implemented two years ago as part of the local government funding formula.
	Now we have the spectacle of the chief constable of Hertfordshire and the chairman of the Hertfordshire police authorityboth well-known Tories, I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speakercoming to the House to ask Members of Parliament of all parties to help them in their fight to try to keep police numbers in Hertfordshire at the same level. I can tell Ministers that my constituents are absolutely fed up with the Government over this. They are very worried about a reduction in police numbers and they are right to be so.
	The other area of great Government selectivity is crime statistics, and I am afraid that we had another example of that this afternoon with the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, on which I serve. Although I agreed in large measure with many of the other things he said, I am afraid that the Government have nothing to give themselves a pat on the back about in respect of crime figures and claiming that they are winning the fight against crime, other than the fact that they are prepared to be very selective indeed in their use of crime figures.
	I remind the House that this Government, in choosing between the British crime survey figures and the recorded crime figures, which give different outcomes, now disregard the recorded crime statistics and choose to rely on the British crime survey figures

Piara S Khabra: I congratulate the Home Secretary and his Department on a number of proposals in the Queen's Speech. Many of the ideas in the agenda get right to the heart of the concerns felt by many of my constituents. I am sure that
	there is much in the proposals that they will welcome. I am particularly pleased about the emphasis on security, as the issue of law and orderwhether it be concern about drugs, antisocial behaviour or any other activityfeatures regularly in my constituency postbag. It is not just the victims of crime who suffer. Even non-violent crimes can cast a shadow over entire neighbourhoods; communities are faced day in and day out with graffiti, abandoned cars, noise nuisance and cycling on the pavement.
	With that in mind, the clean neighbourhoods and environment Bill should further equip local authorities to deal with quality-of-life issues, which the residents of my constituency raise with me quite often. The Bill is rooted in the broken-windows theory of crime: if we tackle low-level problems such as fly posting and graffiti quickly and aggressively, we will send a message that will bring down the levels of more serious crime. That method undoubtedly works when applied properly. Although we have to act sensitively when dealing with diverse communities such as those in my constituency, the results can be extremely positive.
	On a completely different scale, I welcome the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, and specifically the establishment of a Serious Organised Crime Agency, which will take over a number of functions. It hardly needs saying that we live in an increasingly globalised world, where ease of travel and electronic technology have brought not only great benefit but real challenges, as criminals, not to mention terrorists, can exploit such advances to work across international boundaries. That is especially true of drug smuggling and people trafficking, as well as of the growing problem of organised criminals who smuggle migrantsoften at great risk to those migrants; it has been reported many times that migrants have drowned in the sea while travellingwhile generating large profits for themselves.
	Tackling those criminal groups effectively will require a co-ordinated response that the new agency should be able to provide. It could also enhance our effectiveness in combating terrorist organisations and their sympathisers who may fund their networks through other criminal activities, as is so often the case. Of course, there are challenges with creating such a new body. As the Police Federation notes, there needs to be an effective integration of the new body into the existing structures, so that intelligence and information are passed on and not lost or withheld in counter-productive turf wars.
	Although the agency will be useful at a national level in challenging drug trafficking, it is essential that we provide the police and courts with the powers necessary to tackle drug use locally. Just last week, I received a fax signed by a number of local shopkeepers who were concerned that groups of drug users and dealers loitering outside their stores were having a damaging effect on local businesses and the community at large. I hope that the provisions in the drugs Bill will therefore go further not just in reducing the number of users but in ensuring that those taken off the streets are given the support and treatment that they need to beat their addictions so that they do not offend again.
	On balance, I support the introduction of identity cards. Various sections of the community oppose the proposal, while others support it. Of course there are
	real concerns, which should be aired and discussed, but ultimately, as long as the card is used not to create profiles but simply for identification, it should be a means of ensuring that someone is who he or she claims to be. Law enforcement professionals and the public as a whole appear to support the introduction of ID cardsat least, as far as the public are concerned, as long as the card remains affordable. Last week's report that identity fraud occurs every four minutes in the United Kingdom is a sobering reminder of the challenges that we face.
	I am not sure how I feel about the Police Federation's call for the compulsory carrying of cards, as I do not believe that the card will be useless if the law does not compel people to carry it at all times. However, that is probably a moot point, as the Government have said that it will not be compulsory to carry a card. If someone has not broken any law, I do not see why the police would have any further interest in them. The trick will be for the Government to ensure that the system is efficient and secure, so that the public can have confidence in it.
	I also support the introduction of an equality Bill, which is to include a new commission for equality and human rights to replace existing equality bodies and to oversee new laws on age discrimination, sexual orientation and religious beliefs. As a Member of Parliament who represents a hugely diverse constituency, I can certainly see the benefits of a body recognising the challenges faced by different racial and faith groups. However, bringing the issue of equality under a single umbrella organisation should encourage further moves towards fair treatment of all groups, including women, and underscore the point that any discrimination is wrong and will be tackled vigorously.
	As should always be the case, the Government will need to be mindful of the reservations that people may have, and do have, about legislation. When dealing with issues of security, safety and even terrorism, it is all too easy for legislators to undermine a sense of well-being even as

David Clelland: I apologise to the Ministers on the Front Bench, because most of my speech does not relate directly to home affairs. It does, however, relate to the motion on the Order Paper.
	I am disappointed that the Queen's Speech does not include a Bill on regional government. It is said that devolution is a process, not an event, and despite the result of the north-east referendum, that remains true. The region still has to struggle with the north-south divide and a politically and economically strengthened Scotland, Wales and London. The process must continue, and I hope that the legislative measures promised by Her Majesty will deal with other relevant issues. The continued representation in Cabinet of Scotland and Wales must be ended in the interests of fairness, as we must attempt to create a level playing field. There is no justification for continuing to dedicate parliamentary time to Scottish and Welsh questions, now that both countries have devolution. That is not a sideswipe at Scotland, Wales or my hon. Friends who represent such constituenciesindeed, I have great respect for thembut a recognition that the balance has shifted and must be corrected.
	The Barnett formula must be revisited, although I do not believe that scrapping it would necessarily bring huge economic benefits to the north-east. It has been overtaken by circumstances and the process of devolution, and contributes to the imbalance of economic power in the United Kingdom. The Gracious Speech does not contain any reference to the ongoing issue of reform of the House of Lords, although a brainstorming session by a small cross-party group resulted in its stated intention to introduce a draft Bill in the current Session. Its ideas turn on the principle that the majority of Members of the second Chamber should be directly elected. Members of the group seem to have learned little from the recent experience in the north-east, where it was clearly shown that there is little enthusiasm among the electorate for more elected politicians. Perhaps the idea of abolishing the Lords and replacing it with an elected House should be put to the people in a referendum.
	I welcome the sudden conversion of the official Opposition to the cause of local government. Current trends, which were started by the Conservatives, should be put into reverse and power should be transferred back to local authorities. The ongoing review of the balance of funding between central and local government is an opportunity to begin the process, but will Ministers have the guts to do so? Is there a real belief in subsidiarity in the Government or in the official Opposition, or is subsidiarity merely a means of bypassing local authorities by giving the impression of empowering local communities, while Whitehall holds tightly on to the power and the purse strings?
	The education Bill as outlined in the Gracious Speech cannot be criticised for its stated intention of raising standards in all schools, but when I read that it will introduce yet another new relationship with schools, I get very nervous about the direction in which it might take us. I repeat the warning that distancing schools from local authorities will be inconsistent with the Every Child Matters initiative. Now we have the self-styled guru of education, Mr. Chris Woodhead, dedicating himself to the reintroduction and strengthening of elitism in our education system. Perhaps those of my hon. Friends who embraced Mr. Woodhead in 1997 will reflect on the warnings they were given then, and listen more carefully now.
	During the previous Session of Parliament, I raised the issue of consumer credit and the horrendous effects that the activities of some of the less desirable companies can have on members of the public and I gave examples of constituents who had suffered. Ministers promised that they would look seriously at the matter, and I welcome the inclusion in the Queen's Speech of a consumer credit Bill to begin to tackle abuses in this area.
	Measures to financially assist and encourage young people who choose further education and/or training are also welcome. I draw attention to the recent report on the performance of colleges of further education. I am proud to say that any criticism in the report applies to a minority of colleges and certainly does not apply to Gateshead or Newcastle colleges in my constituency. Those colleges provide a wide range of excellent opportunities for young and not so young people in the Tyneside and wider area. They are an example of how further education and training should be provided and are a vital part of the regeneration of the area. Our region badly needs to train new craftsmen and to retain and retrain those we have.
	In that regard I make a plea to Ministers to revisit the smart procurement policies talked about in 1997 but never effectively implemented. It must make sense to ensure that highly skilled workers are not cast aside because of temporary gaps in order books, when Government Departments know that they will be needed at a foreseeable time to carry out new work. There ought to be a way of planning the procurement of equipment in the Ministry of Defence and elsewhere so that we do not lose vital skills and families do not suffer unnecessarily.
	I welcome the inclusion in the Gracious Speech of a Railways Bill. I hope that that will give us the chance to look not only at the national rail infrastructure and services, but how that links into local and regional services in a proper integrated way. I ask the Secretary of State for Transport to look again at the modernisation plans that our local passenger transport executives have in their filing cabinets and help them to realisation. Tyne and Wear metro system is popular and efficient, but it needs upgrading and extending. Plans to do just that will be presented to Ministers in the next few months, and I hope that they will receive a fair hearing and a favourable response.
	I make a plea for more local control over local bus services. The Railways Bill is intended to tackle the dysfunctional system that resulted from Tory privatisation. The Tory privatisation and deregulation of local bus services has ended up with an equally dysfunctional system. Recent changes to services in Gateshead have highlighted the inappropriateness of reliance on the profit motive to provide essential local services, and I hope that the Government will look favourably on reintroducing local regulation into local transport systems.
	The successful bid for the franchise for the north east main line will be announced soon. In general, GNER has done a good job and, on the basis of my experience, would get my vote, but I hope that during the process Ministers will look at another aspect of the responsibilities of franchisees. I refer to our great railway stations. These give rail travellers their first impression of the place where they alight, and it is much more important to the town or city than it is to the train operatorso it is with Newcastle central station in my constituency. GNER looks after its customers very well and the areas used by GNER passengers are generally well kept and well maintained. However, other areas used by local and regional trains are less well catered for. The station would be far better managed by local authorities.
	There is much to be commended in the Queen's Speech. I support the proposals to introduce new measures to clean up neighbourhoods and protect the environment. I welcome the proposal that there should be more visible security on our streets. The street wardens and community support officers that we have are popular and effective.
	Finally, I welcome the reference in the Queen's Speech to security, for security is a word that encapsulates all that most of my constituents want from life. People want and need to feel secure in their homes, in their communities, in their jobs and in their retirement. They want to be secure in the knowledge that there are good, efficient public services to support them and their families and to help them live long and contented lives.

Peter Bottomley: Eighteen years ago, 5,600 people a year died on our roads. Of those, 1,200 died because the driver or motorcycle rider had consumed more than the legal alcohol limit. The figures are now much lower; 2,000 fewer die on the roads, and about 800 fewer die because of drink driving. Little of that was changed by the law; most of it was changed by culture and people's expectations.
	I look forward to the day when we no longer have 2,400 new serious criminals each week, and when a third of young men have not collected by age 30 a conviction for which they could have been sent to jail for six months or more. In the short term, I look forward to the Home Office having and publishing cohort studies showing what is the experience of, say, each six-month cohort of young people, each year, so that we get regular figures, which, I hope, will show improvements. Once we learn what begins to make an improvement, we can reinforce what works, and stop doing what does not work.
	Too often, when there is a problem, Ministers, as well as Back Benchers, propose to the House one of three solutions: a law to make something a crime, in the expectation that that stops it, although I have illustrated that with 2,400 new serious criminals each week, that does not work; tax and spending, which the present Government have shown does not work well; or exhortation, and there is no real evidence that that works either. What is needed is to try to get into people's minds and habits, and, occasionally, to use low technology.
	Unlike the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks), who thinks that constituency casework is in some way a bore, I find it rather useful in terms of illustrating national issues with local experience. To deal with drugs dealing in my constituency, I should like the police and local authority to use low-tech camera surveillance, some open and some covert. Wherever there is a suspected drug dealing place, especially if it is someone's home in a residential area, I should like the police openly to put a camera outside and to film the people who go in for a couple of minutes' business and then come out. I suspect that most of the amateurs, most of whom probably fund their illegal drugs habit by dealing, will find it awkward. The more we make things awkward, the less likely it is that that will happen.
	I am not an expert on drugs. I was just too young for national service, and just too old to be invited to join the permissive society. I thought I might wait until I was 60 to try some of these things; now that I am 60, I think I shall wait until I am 70 or 80. I believe, though, that it is possible to deal with some of the young people who go in for experimentation, first by making it more awkward for people to offer them drugs free, and then by helping them to understand that trading in drugseven at the lowest pricesleads to the kind of life that they would not choose to live. We must give them that choice, as well as bringing about the culture change that worked with drink-driving.
	I wish that the Government were as interested in justice as they are in law. Every Member of Parliament will see a report from the Criminal Cases Review Commission stating that a problem involving pension costs for their own staff is leading to a significant delay in cutting the waiting time for people with well-founded cases for a review of their own position. In those instances people have been convicted, the appeal system is not working, and the CCRC thinks that it is worth investigating their cases in detail. There is a reasonable suspicion of injustice, and in some casesincluding one or two cases that affect constituents of minethere has definitely been an injustice.
	I should like the Government to spend a little less time on their rhetoric and on the treadmill of law that they produce in the House, and a bit more time on ensuring thatat least for the next two yearsthe CCRC is given a budget that will allow my former constituent Mr. Derek Jack Tully not to wait until he is dead to have his case reviewed. I cannot argue to the CCRC or even to Ministers that his case is as urgent as that of those who are still in jail, because he is out of jail now; but I do believe that he needs a chance to exonerate himself, given that he should not have suffered his conviction.
	Mr. Tully's case, however, is not the main point that I am making. My main point is that the Government should spend money on what actually aids justice. I should also like the Minister to tell us which Minister is responsible for the people locked up in Belmarsh jail who will not face a trial, and which Minister is responsible for the British nationals and British residents in Guantanamo Bay whowhether or not they will face a military commissionhave not been given representation. Indeed, we cannot be sure that those in Guantanamo Bay have not experienced things that, in plain English, would be called torture; unacceptable behaviour.
	Who will stand up on behalf of the Government and say I will take responsibility for answering questions? Who will say I will say what we, the Government, have done with the American authorities while trying to protect people here, there and around the world? Who will say that the Government recognise that people are not protected by being put in a legal limbo where they cannot, in fact, be protected from the kind of behaviour that I thought our free countries were dedicated to stamping out throughout the world?
	I hope that we can also deal, through law, with some of the Government's changes involving the fast-tracking of people whose presence in this country is suspected of being unauthorised; failed asylum seekers or illegal migrants. On Saturday I took up the case of Cristen Kulinji, a Zimbabwean who, I understand, had spent four days in Malawi in his life. He had clearly been tortured, and clearly had to escape. He came here, and because the only way in which someone in his circumstances can come here is by obtaining a Malawi passport or something similar, he has been fast-tracked back to Malawi via Harare, where it is very likely that the authorities will have taken hold of him. I hope that the Government will take account of such cases. I hope that they will consider whether they have gone too far in cutting off legal aid which would enable people to secure competent lawyers to put their cases. In Mr. Kulinji's case, I suspect that the expulsion order would have been overturned.
	We have some business remaining from last year. I support the Government on the Mental Capacity Bill. I will not vote for euthanasia, and I hope that those who condemn the Bill on the grounds that it supports euthanasia will read the Bill and understand the 15-year campaign behind it. I support the Law Society's doubts over the Mental Health Bill, and I hope that the Government will try to explain why the Law Society and I should feel more relaxed about it.
	I think that the Government have scored less than 50 per cent. on law and order. That is not good enough, and I hope we can soon unite those who want a Tory Government with those who think that the Tories will act in the national interest rather more effectively than the present Government. As I suspect everyone knows, there are too many Labour Members of Parliament, and voting Liberal is not the answer to any serious national problem. My party has the national interest at heart, and I hope that we are as successful in the next election as we were in the referendum in the north-east.

Chris Bryant: I enjoyed much of what the hon. Member for Worthing, West (Peter Bottomley) said until the last couple of sentences. He seemed to take off in flights of fancy.
	The debate has been interesting. I particularly enjoyed the contributions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who made some important points about the need to remove the blasphemy law in favour of a measure to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, and of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones). She made an important point about the youth service, which is often forgottena Cinderella servicein the whole crime and law and order debate.
	I was somewhat perplexed when the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) accused the Government of being the French revolution of the modern era. In fact, from the speeches we heard today, if there were to be a Danton-style triumvirate, it would be the hon. Members for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) and for Macclesfield (Sir Nicholas Winterton) and the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard).
	I had thought to speak about identity cards, not least because while rummaging through some old papers yesterday, I found my mother's old ID card. However, when I realised that she was given it in 1969 by General Franco's fascist dictatorship in Spain I thought that it would not really help my cause.
	I decided instead to talk about drugs, for two simple reasons. First and foremost, as many have already said, drugs are one of the major problems that face every community in the land. About 38 in every thousand people in the country have some kind of drug dependency problem, although I want to correct the figure touted by many people in the debatethat there are 1 million drug users. That is overstatement by a considerable degree. It is certainly true that a million people say that at some point in their life they have taken a class A drug, but that does not make every single one of them a problem drug user. It is important that we get the figures right, and I think that the number is more like 250,000, although that is not to deny that there is a significant problem.
	In my constituency, we have a significant drugs problem. Some time ago, the major regional dealers in Birmingham and Bristol decided to start marketing their services in the south Wales valleys. Unfortunately, that has led to the devastation of many families and individual lives, characterised, as many Members will know, by a potent sense of desperation and powerlessness, which undermines the strong sense of community historically experienced in many mining constituencies, such as mine.
	I have especially in mind the problems we experienced in the Rhondda in 2002 when, over 10 days, 12 young people died through drug-related problems during the weekend of the Queen's jubilee. We have not had many drugs deaths since then. Some of the policies that the Government have implemented have changed things and given people the possibility of moving away from their drug dependency, although there is still a significant amount of work for us to do.
	I want to draw the House's attention to some specific areas where there is work to be done, although I recognise that the Bill that will be introduced, especially through the requirement that there will be drug testing on arrest and not just when a person is charged, will help us to ensure that criminals with a drug dependency problem are given the right treatment from the moment they enter the criminal justice system. There are a few issues on which the Government need to move faster. It is important that we get the statistics on drug-related deaths right. Members may have seen the claim in The Times a few days ago that Spalding in Lincolnshire was the country's drug death capital, linked to a report that showed that 12.1 in 1,000 deaths in Boston and Spalding were drug-related. In fact, contrary to the headline, the figure for Brighton and Hove was twice that number, at 25.3 deaths per thousanda significant number.
	It is easy to take such figures for the truth, yet since 1984 the Government have produced no advice on how coroners should determine whether a death is drug-related. Some coroners will record a death as drug-related only if a needle is found in someone's arm; others will do so if there is a positive toxicology report of any kind. The truth is that it is time the Government produced new guidance for coroners. They promised to do so two years ago, but there has still been no new set of guidelines. Some drug-related deaths may be going unreported in some areas of the country, and if we are to ensure that we get the right resources to every part of the country, we need to get the statistics right.
	Secondly, of course, we need to tackle the waiting list problem. We have done a significant amount in the past few years. Two years ago, the waiting time for the various kinds of drug treatment in Rhondda was about 18 months to two years. We have now cut that down to about four months, thanks to a significant extra amount of money from the Welsh Assembly Government for a new drug treatment centre in Llwynypia. The Government have done sterling work in cutting the average wait from about 12 weeks in 1997 to just over two weeks, but waiting times are still considerably longer in significant areas of the country.

Chris Bryant: I will not give way to my hon. Friend because I know that at least one other very important Member wishes to speak on this subject, and she has already had a go.
	I agree with those hon. Members who have said that we need to tackle not just the regional dealers but the small dealers in local communities. Often when I have spoken at secondary schools on any random set of subjects, many young people come up to me and say, We all know where the dealers are, but the police never do anything about it. That is the problem. Sometimes, the police decide that it is better to know where the local, small-time dealer is, because they are trying to catch the big, regional dealer. The problem for youngsters is that they always know where they can go to get their drugs. We need to destabilise the supply at local level, which involves tackling the small-time dealers.
	We also need to focus much more significantly on education. The Government have done a great deal with the Frank programme, which is excellent. In some parts of Wales, we have had the drugs awareness resistance education programmeDAREwhich has also been good, but we need to go a step further. It is not enough just to have schools teaching about drugs; it is much more important to ensure that the home environment enables youngsters to talk about drugs and the problems that they face with their parents.
	In Sweden, there is a programme whereby every parent of a 13-year-old is sent readily comprehensible information that they can use with their children. Building that relationship is one of the important things that we could to tackle the problem of drugs. It is not particularly important to get macho, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten) said earlier, or to be tough. The important thing is to get the policies right, and I believe that the Government are travelling in the right direction, but we still have a significant way to go.

Iain Wright: I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on the Queen's Speech and to concentrate on home affairs, especially when the quality of the debate has been so high on both sides of the House. I was particularly struck with the thoughtful contribution made by my namesake, my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright), who made a subtle and incisive speech. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) on many of the points that she made.
	The Queen's Speech contained many proposals that will directly benefit my constituency. Its focus is right and reflects the achievements made after seven years of a Labour Government, but I should like Ministers to consider some points to ensure that my constituents gain even more from the proposals sets out in the Queen's Speech.
	The Government are right to focus on safety and security, and to provide reassurance in our communities. As the Home Secretary said earlier in the debate, the economic competence of the Chancellor in the face of several global recessions since 1997 has ensured that, in my experience, my constituents are no longer saying, Why can't we find work or a training place? They are now concentrating on quality of life issues, and rightly so.
	Nevertheless, there is a clear link between crime and economic prosperity. Let us consider a potential business man or woman. I imagine that they would not contemplate setting up a business in an area where they run the risk of losing stock or machinery through burglary on a nightly basis or having to repair their property time and time again after acts of mindless vandalism. Promoting safer and more secure business communities would greatly reduce social costs and help to rejuvenate deprived areas such as Hartlepool. I urge Ministers to do more in that regard.
	On the proposals on drugs in the Queen's Speech, further progress with drug rehabilitation is a welcome step. I completely agree with the setting up of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. I ask Ministers to ensure that a key part of the agency's remit and the drugs Bill is to crack down on dealers. All too often for the young men and women growing up on our estates, the most successful member of their peer group is the local drug dealer, with a flash car, decent clothes and plenty of money in their pocket. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 was a great step forward, and I hope that the proposed legislation as outlined in the Queen's Speech will go further towards ensuring that people, including present and potential dealers, recognise not only that crime does not pay but that they will be punished severely for peddling drugs in our neighbourhoods.
	I also welcome the proposals to extend financial support for 16 to 19-year-olds involved in education and training. By giving real financial incentives to continue studying or training, the Government will help the economy by producing a high-skilled work force and, as a nod to the antisocial behaviour theme, help keep people on the straight and narrow.
	I believe a central element of the Queen's Speech is the Government's determination to do more to tackle antisocial behaviour. I applaud that, because this is the major concern of my constituents. People's quality of life is blighted by petty crimefrom graffiti and noisy neighbours to gangs of youths on street corners threatening and alarming residents. We in Hartlepool are in a curious position in which crime has come down by 20 per cent in the past three months, yet fear of crime is rising. I shared a platform on Saturday with the head of Hartlepool police, Chief Superintendent Dave Nixon. He specifically said that crime is reducing in Hartlepool as a direct consequence of the Labour Government's initiatives.
	When I talk to my constituents about the fear of crime, however, it is the specific fear of antisocial behaviour that concerns them. It is walking past a gang of youths on their way to the shops to buy a pint of milk that intimidates them. I do not think that the proposed legislation should scare people, but reassure them. Responsive neighbourhood policing by which residents know the name of their local policeman or woman or community support officer is precisely what my constituents want. This will reassure them and help to reduce the problems on our streets.
	I would also like Ministers to consider whether technology could be used to tackle the problems. I have been on a Friday night patrol with the local police, and I asked the officer concerned about the point continually made by the Conservative party about additional bureaucracy. He responded that he did not think that there was such bureaucracy. On the contrary, he said that he thought the number of forms was being reduced. However, he made the valid point that technology, such as hand-held BlackBerries to capture information, could be used. I ask Ministers to consider the provision of such technology on the front line for police to act against crime.
	Most of all, I hope that the details in the proposed Bills in the Queen's Speech help to ensure that communities can take control of their own lives. For when residents say enough is enough and communities set their own standards of behaviour, great advances can be made, and I do not mean that in a way that encourages vigilantes. However, given the tools, the powers and the freedoms to make a difference in their areas, normal, decent hard-working people will lift their communities forward. That has been seen in my constituency in areas such as Burbank, where local residents, empowered by the Government, have reclaimed their streets and are making a real difference. It also means providing relevant and up-to-date places for young people to go, so that they can socialise without being intimidated themselves or intimidating others. I do not mean rewarding people for bad behaviour, but recognising that boredom and a lack of appropriate facilities often help to cause antisocial behaviour. I ask Home Office Ministers to provide funding in my constituency and others to allow for good facilities to nip potential problems in the bud.
	I hope that the Government go further in stripping away empire building, which means that agencies such as local authorities, the police and registered social landlords do not share information for fear of losing some of their perceived power. My constituents do not care about thatthey want results. They want their streets safe and clean, and the local villains locked up. Hartlepool has been massively successful in pulling together agencies to ensure that results can be delivered, but we need to go further to ensure that all relevant agencies co-ordinate more of the information available to them so that problems are responded to quickly and antisocial behaviour is minimised.
	The proposed charities Bill is also a welcome step. Ministers have a real opportunity to co-ordinate legislation in the Queen's Speech by linking the Bill with antisocial behaviour legislation, thus granting greater powers to voluntary and residents' groups. Hartlepool has strong residents groups, and they are a key reason why we are tackling the problems in our town. However, I ask the Government to consider whether the charities Bill's powers will be sufficient to allow charitable status for residents associations, for example, or to reduce bureaucracy sufficiently so that more money will be available on the front line for residents associations to tackle the problems in our neighbourhoods.
	The Government have done much to reduce crime in my constituency and throughout the country, and the measures in the Queen's Speech are a further step in the right direction. We need to do more to reassure my constituents in respect of their fear of crime and antisocial behaviour, and the proposed legislation, if enacted, will help to do that.

Dominic Grieve: As is so often the case in Queen's Speech debates, we have had a wide-ranging discussion on difficult issues, freed from some of the constraints we face when considering individual Bills. Several aspects of the debate were extraordinary. The hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Tony Wright) attempted an analysis of several of the underlying causes of crime and disorder in our society. I did not disagree with the views that he expressed with his characteristic care.
	As I listened to the hon. Gentleman, I was struck by the fact that he was raising a real issue that Labour Members should perhaps consider. He rightly identified a society that is getting richer and consuming more, yet in which there is erosion of civil infrastructure while the behavioural revolution seems to be moving in the wrong direction. We must pose the question, on a cross-party basis, of how that has come about. It seems to me that it is at least partly a result of a system in which traditional values have been eroded and consistently undermined by those seeking change and education has been transformed, but in whichwe must also accept thisthe desire of many for permissiveness has not always been matched by people respecting the obligations that go with that.
	At the other end of the spectrum, we heard the depressing, albeit honest, vision of the hon. Member for West Ham (Mr. Banks). Freed at last from the constraints of his constituents, he effectively told us that he had reached a point at which he believed that the only solution to his constituents' problems was an armed police force. He went on to say that only enforcement to prevent people from doing such things as playing nasty war games would start to moderate behaviour. Is it not the case that over the past decade, we have consistently seen one legislative attempt after another to moderate people's behaviour by regulation, yet that has completely failed to achieve desired goals? The Government come along and ban the shooting of .22 pistols because they say that that will send a powerful signal that violence is unacceptable. Far from that doing anything of the kind, however, the use of guns has risen, yet law-abiding people and those who might have attained a state of responsibility by being allowed to use a handgun in a gun club are prevented from carrying out a legitimate activity.
	The right hon. Member for Tyneside, North (Mr. Byers) provided us with an astonishing Panglossian view of the world. After seven years of a Labour Government and seven years of endeavour, he asserted that somehow the consequences of the rise in crime that now concerned him could have nothing to do with Government policy whatsoever.
	I regret to say that the right hon. Gentleman's comments were echoed by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham), who I am afraid made a speech that could have been written for him by the Home Secretary. There was no criticism of Labour, yet in his important capacity as a Committee Chairman he highlighted the very fact, which he failed to do today, that there is not much point in criticising the judges for the Sentencing Guidelines Council and their recent guidelines because the fault lay with the Home Secretary for failing to draft the Bill properly, which led to the introduction of those guidelines. The consistent view of the House is that we have insufficient time to consider legislation.
	We had many contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House, identifying what was going on in their constituencies. It was a pretty unhappy picture, but all the more telling because it came from their own experiences. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Flook) talked about the widespread use of cannabis and the disintegration of communities in his constituency. My right hon. Friend the Member for South-West Norfolk (Mrs. Shephard) pointed out that as her police force is chronically underfunded, it is a bit difficult to expect it to carry out its functions, something that was picked up by other hon. Members.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) went into considerable detail on his views on identity cards. He also highlighted the problem of police precepts. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) said that the police are hamstrung by bureaucracy and gave telling personal experience of that, which the Home Secretary denied in the course of the debate.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) explained that community support officers in her constituency are not well regarded. They have been referred to as scarecrows within the police force. I might not agree with that pejorative term, but if the Government want to introduce neighbourhood policing, they will need police officers to bring it about.

Diana Organ: I have called for this debate as I was alerted to the escalating problem of debt and the significant rise in the demand for money advice by the Forest of Dean citizens advice bureau. Over the past two years, the team has dealt with debt totalling almost 4 million in 332 cases, and there has been a 35 per cent. increase in the number of cases over the past 15 months. The work is usually urgent, as more and more creditors have initiated county court actions to secure their debts and have secured charging orders on property, so clients may be at risk of losing their homes. It is complicated work. There is a pattern of increasing numbers of creditors: sometimes, people have as many as 20. It is not unusual for clients to have 10 separate credit card debts. The service, which is free, independent and of high quality, is straining to meet the needs of people with a debt crisis. The team anticipates that if the rising trend continues, it will be unable to provide an effective service to new clientsand that could be the case in the next few months.
	This debate is particularly timely in the run-up to Christmas, when everyone is encouragednay, pressuredto spend and spend again in the high street, while in winter they also have to spend more on heating and electricity. The pressures on pensioners on fixed incomes and on families on low incomes to have what they might consider a proper Christmas are now high. For many, such pressures will mean a debt crisis in 2005.
	Credit is now an integral part of our daily lives, but this was not so years ago. It is even a factor in driving our successful economy. Credit cards number two to every one person in the population. British consumers borrow at a rate of about 1 million every four minutes. The total amount of borrowing is more than 1 trillion. British household debt is now equal to the total amount owed by Africa, Asia and Latin America to international banks and through loans from other countries. The ratio of debt to income is at an unprecedented high. For most people, debt or credit is not a problem, as it is managed and budgeted and paid for, but for others it is unmanageableit is out of control and it is ruining their lives. The National Consumer Council has said that about 6 million families are struggling to keep up credit repayments and are in a debt trap, taking on more borrowing to service their existing debts.
	What I was alerted to by the Forest of Dean citizens advice bureau is happening across the country. Nationally, Citizens Advice has said that the number of debt cases has increased by 45 per cent. in the past five years, with a million people seeking advice from their money advice service. Some are using credit to survive from one pay day or benefit cheque to another. Such people see borrowing as the only way of solving their problems of paying ordinary household bills or getting a new bed or washing machine when they need it. They cannot consider the effect that it could have in future; they just have to deal with today. More than 3 million households now rely on the services of moneylenders or loan sharks. There has been an explosion in unsecured debt, which currently stands at 172 billion and is growing by almost 10 per cent. a year.
	For anyone, it is far too easy to get credit. Anybody who goes up and down the high street tomorrow will be offered a 10 per cent. discount when they make their purchase, if they will only take up the opportunity of getting a store credit card. On going next door, they can get the same treatment and pick up another card. In the next store, another can be picked up. At the end of one day, somebody can have almost a pack of store or credit cards. They can spend up to their limithundreds and hundreds of poundsand there is little to stop them doing so. It is easy and tempting for many, and at this time of year, it puts particular pressure on people to take up those opportunities, but it is not clear to people what is really being offered to them. Unlike other products, credit cards do not come with health warnings about the damage that they could cause to people's health and life. The interest rates are high enough quickly to double a 200 spendif it is not paid offthrough late payment charges and compound interest rates of more than 30 per cent.
	Debt is not only accrued by consumers who are tempted on the high street. It can be accrued by unpaid rent, mortgage arrears and council tax, gas, electricity and water billsthe everyday needs of people trying to manage. If people do not know how to manage, have never been taught or given assistance and have never received help or advice about how to budget on a limited budget, the situation can become impossible.
	Added to that, loan companies vigorously promote the idea that the way to solve financial difficulty is to round up the various debts into one, new, big debt with them. They advertise on television and radio and by unsolicited promotions through the letterbox, offering increasing numbers of people that way out. What are they really offering? They are offering more credit, even to people with a bad credit record.
	The personal debt crisis must be tackled, because it is ruining lives. Advice and reliable information are required, and regulations and legislation must be implemented to control and protect people. I know that the Minister recognises the importance of advice, support and money counselling. He knows the importance of the money advice service provided by citizens advice bureaux to so many, particularly those who are less well-off in our community.
	The Minister may not know that Forest of Dean CAB has warned that cuts in its vital money advice service are inevitable unless extra resources are made available. Its important work is funded by the Legal Services Commission, the lottery community fund, The Forest of Dean district council and Forest of Dean housing. Smaller funds are provided by town and parish councils, Gloucestershire county council, Lloyds TSB and others. Forest of Dean CAB's current expected costs for its money advice projects, which relate to debt work for 200405 is more than 126,000.
	Forest of Dean CAB's main source of funding is its current three-year contract with the LSC, but it has told me that that contract is unwieldy. The system is not easy to use and involves burdensome administrationit contains silly little items such as having to work out six-minute blocks of time with a client. It is complicated and allows Forest of Dean CAB to claim only a maximum of 1,300 hours of debt work. Effectively, debt work is capped, but the number of people coming through the door is not.
	The system allows Forest of Dean CAB to claim only for eligible clients, who are those on benefit or with very low incomes. Sometimes, the LSC refuses to extend the hours beyond the initial 10 allotted per case, but the work must go on, so Forest of Dean CAB funds it from elsewhere. We must examine that system and review the funding stream. The contracts from the LSC must be made more flexible, so that the citizens advice bureaux can deliver their vital work.
	Some finance companies or banks contribute to money advice work. In the Forest of Dean, for example, Nationwide and Lloyds TSB contribute, and nationally Barclays, MBNA, Provident Financial and the Royal Bank of Scotland all provide funding for money advicecitizens advice bureaux are the largest free money advice suppliers in the UK. However, many other operators in the financial sector do not contribute. Many banks, finance and loan companies and all the high street stores that offer credit cards make no contribution, and they make considerable profit from credit. We need to build on the CAB's money advice to ensure that we have a network of independent financial advice. That should be supported by credit providers and the investment industry, with contributions from all major players in the financial credit sector and the independent money and debt advice sector, as well as from the Government through the LSC and local authorities.
	More needs to done to give people accurate information on what they are getting into and what products are being offered them so that they can make the correct decision. We need stronger enforcement to prevent misleadingin fact, inaccurateadvertising by debt and loan companies. We need much better advice from a variety of sources so that people are not able to go not only to the CAB but to other advice services. The consumer must be given a clear health warning on credit cards and store cards, and there must be much more vigorous monitoring and enforcement by trading standards in relation to the excessive interest rates on those cards. I hope that there will be a greater tightening up of the granting of credit licences to companies and more policing and regulation of their operations and tactics and use of unsolicited credit promotion.
	In July 2004, the Government announced a series of initiatives, one of which was a pilot scheme offering a helpline that will act as a gateway to specialist debt advice. That will be of enormous help in the Forest of Dean, and we look forward to it. However, as the Minister no doubt agrees, free and independent information, advice and counselling from the existing providerthe money advice service of the CABis a vital service to the rising number of people facing a debt crisis, and we must ensure that it has the resources adequately to tackle this growing problem in future.
	I have suggested that the finance sector itself should make more contribution to these services. However, as the Government are already, through the community legal service, the major provider of funds for the money advice service, I now look to them to give the Forest of Dean citizens advice bureau the reassurance that the resources will be available to meet the rising demand for its much-needed services.

Gerry Sutcliffe: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Diana Organ) on securing the debate. I am delighted to have the opportunity to discuss this subject with her. I know that she recognises the work that the Government have already done through the launch of the consumer credit White Paper, which dealt with many of the issues to which she alluded, including greater transparency of credit agreements and the need to ensure that newspaper adverts carrying these apparently wonderful offers make it very clear what is proposed.
	My hon. Friend is right to point to how the consumer credit situation has changed dramatically. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 is 30 years old. Thirty years ago, there was one credit card and an annual debt of about 32 million, at today's prices; now, there are 1,500 products in the marketplace and debts into the billions. It was therefore right and necessary for the Government to honour their manifesto commitment to examine the issue of consumer credit, and a great deal of work has been done. This debate is fortuitous given the announcement in the Queen's Speech of the forthcoming consumer credit Bill, which will address many of the issues that my hon. Friend raised. As far as I am concerned, as the Minister responsible, the transparency and responsibility of the lender, and the responsibility of the borrower, are key issues.
	I pay tribute to the Select Committee on the Treasury, which has done a great deal of work on store card interest rates, and to my hon. Friend for the work that she is doing in her constituency and for listening to the citizens advice bureau and to several other organisations that offer advice. I also thank her for the parliamentary questions that she has tabled to make sure that we cover properly the many issues that she raises.
	My hon. Friend raised over-indebtedness, which has several distressing effects and costs for the communities that we represent, whether rural or urban. She spelled out clearly some of the specific problems that it has caused in her constituency. I am sure that hon. Members would recognise them from all our surgeries. The papers have been full of the fact that the amount of personal debt is at an all-time high.
	As my hon. Friend said, we are told that personal debt is currently more than 1 trillion, or approximately 25,000 owed by every adult or 40,000 owed by every household. We have to be clear about what that means. Some four fifths of the 1 trillion represents investment in property and roughly a quarter of the population are buying their houses and securing their futures. By doing that, they are much better off than previous generations.
	Of the more than 1 trillion, some 179 billion is unsecured consumer credit. Of the consumer credit loans that are taken out, some 70 per cent. are for home improvements or to purchase cars. All that increases the net worth of individuals. As my hon. Friend said, the majority of credit is used sensibly. Indeed, credit is an integral part of the daily lives of many of us. It is used to benefit consumers and improve their situations and to allow them to participate fully in the marketplace. Consumers use it to smooth out their income, spreading payments over successive wage packets. That makes a vital contribution to the United Kingdom economy, driving economic activity by allowing consumers flexibility in the way in which they choose to access the marketplace and manage their finances, and enabling resources to be put to the most efficient use.
	Despite global uncertainty, households remain confident in their finances. Although debt has been increasing, assets have also risen. Household total net wealth has increased by more than 50 per cent. since 1997. Real household disposable incomes have continued to improve, growing by 3.1 per cent. a year on average since the first quarter of 1997, compared with 2.3 per cent. in the 199297 Parliament.
	The low interest rates that greater macro-economic stability delivers have ensured that household interest payments remain low by historical standards. That contrasts with the over-expansion in demand in the late 1980s, with interest rates peaking at 15 per cent. That led to the collapse of the housing market. The proportion of repossession now is historically low. Although debt is rising, household finances are in a strong position, with net wealth up by nearly 70 per cent. since 1997.
	Households pay a significantly smaller proportion of their income in interest payments than they did in the early 1990s. Household total interest payment is 7.6 per cent. of disposable income. That figure is for the first quarter of 2004. Household total interest payment peaked at 15.1 per cent. in the second quarter of 1990. Household total net wealth has increased by more than 50 per cent. since 1997 and household wealth is almost six times greater than the debt.
	Since 1997, UK gross domestic product growth has been more stable than that of any other G7 country. Employment has increased by more than 1.8 million since early 1997 and unemployment rates are close to their lowest levels since the 1970s.
	The majority of those who become over-indebted do so through a sudden change in circumstances: a death, an illness, a separation, divorce, sudden unemployment or a business failure. However, some consumers do not use credit sensibly. Indeed, they use it irresponsibly. They over-spend and run up huge sums of debt that they cannot repay, thus becoming over-indebted. However, I am pleased to say that they are a minority.
	More worrying are the people who are over-indebted due to low incomes or mental health problems. We need to help those vulnerable consumers, who are often unable to help themselves. For people on low incomes, over-indebtedness is a very real possibility, which can result in significant costs for the individual and society. There are clear links with the problems of financial exclusion, in which the Treasury has a special interest.
	We have all heard distressing stories of people who have found themselves in debt and resorted to acts of desperation to get out of it. There have been some well publicised suicides recently, due to debt. They are a minority of cases but they act as a focus of attention on the costs of over-indebtedness. All too often, they could have been avoided if the victim had sought or been given help.
	I am well aware that my hon. Friend knows that the Government take the issue seriously and that she supports our work to tackle over-indebtedness and ensuring that help is available. As she said, on 20 July I published Tackling Over-indebtednessAction Plan 2004, which sets out the large number of initiatives that various Departments and others are undertaking to deal with the problem.
	It is clear that many issues may be involved, such as how local government and central Government collect their own debts, which can contribute to the problem. However, the plan sets out a number of priority areas that need to be addressed. These include improving financial literacy, ensuring access to affordable credit and improving access to free debt advice, among others.
	I chair jointly with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond), a cross-Government ministerial group on over-indebtedness. This ensures that progress and new thinking on measures to tackle over-indebtedness are joined up and take account of other Government initiatives. The group includes colleagues from Her Majesty's Treasury, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Department for Education and Skills, all of whom have a keen interest in this area, particularly with regard to how we ensure that consumers are empowered to deal with over-indebtedness.
	Two further groupsan official group including representatives from those and other interested Departments and an advisory group including representatives from consumer groups such as Citizens Advice, the credit industry and academiahave also been convened to support this work. We have publicly committed to update on progress on the priorities set out in the report during the summer of next year.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean raised the issue of money advice from CABs. I have to say that they are doing a great job, but are under a great deal of pressure; I acknowledge that pressure. Citizens Advice and other free debt advice providers offer a vital service for consumers who find themselves with debt problems. The majority of people who are approached and asked will be aware that Citizens Advice provides free debt advice, among other offerings, but it deservedly has a well known brand and does a wonderful job providing holistic advice to people who need help with their debt problems.
	As my hon. Friend said, individual CABs are contracted by the Legal Services Commission to deliver a certain number of hours of advice. It has been recognised that often the contracts entered into with CABs oblige the staff to carry out a number of bureaucratic administrative tasks. The Legal Services Commission is conducting research on contracting with the not-for-profit sector and is likely to publish a report in the new year. It has already looked at ways to undertake audit and inspection in proportion to contract value and tailored to risk in solicitors' contracts under its preferred supplier pilot.
	So, I fully agree with my hon. Friend as to the importance of ensuring that all those who benefit from the supply of free debt advice should support it. She gave examples from her own constituency of who contributes and who does not. We must ensure that everybody contributes and we are looking at the issue of sustainable funding. As she said, too much time and resources are wasted by management teams in free debt advice providers, the majority of which are charities seeking renewals of annual funding.
	We are encouraging funders of free debt advice services to commit funding for three-year periods, allowing providers greater certainty. We have been encouraged by evidence of the credit industry's willingness to provide such sustainable funding, with the Royal Bank of Scotland committing 1.8 million over three years to providing training for free debt advice providers. We will continue to monitor which companies support the initiative and will take the appropriate action with those that do not.
	The Financial Services Authority is developing a national financial capability strategy that aims to provide consumers with the education, information and generic advice needed to make financial decisions with confidence. Financial capability will allow consumers to make the most of financial opportunities and to avoid expensive and inappropriate products.
	The Government are committed to ensuring that consumers attain a reasonable level of financial literacy education and recognise that there is a strong link between poor financial understanding, poor basic skills and social exclusion. The FSA has set up seven groups: schools, young adults, work, families, borrowing, retirement and advice. Particular attention is being focused on teaching children in schools about credit and other financial products. If my hon. Friend will take my word for this, that is an area where I feel a great deal of attention needs to be applied. We will be ensuring that that is the case through the consumer credit Bill and the supporting policies that we need to deliver those things.
	I also strongly support the need for high-quality, independent, free debt advice. The capability to access free debt advice is extremely important in helping people cope with their debts. It is therefore imperative that we ensure that everyone is aware that appropriate advice and help is available, and that they are able to access it. My hon. Friend is aware from her local citizens advice bureau that the demand for debt advice is putting a lot of pressure on the advisers supplying it. All free debt advice providers are reporting rises in the number of people approaching them for help and the number of people being helped. A number of those people are seeking help earlier in the cycle than had previously been the case, which is encouraging. But there are still more people trying to access free advice services than there is capacity to deal with them. We are considering innovative ways of addressing that issue, working with the credit industry and the free debt advice sector.
	For that reason, I strongly welcome and support the work taken forward jointly by the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, Citizens Advice, the Money Advice Trust, Advice UK and Payplan, with the support of the credit industry and Government, to develop a gateway that will allow consumers to be referred to an appropriate service for their needs. The gateway will provide an additional route into those services. It will provide a point of contact, which will filter calls, identifying the requirements of the caller and directing them to the appropriate advice provider for their circumstances. The caller will then be passed on to one of the free telephone debt advice providers involved in the gateway for advice straightaway, or their details will be passed on to one of the participating face-to-face providers for an appointment.
	Evidence from the proof of concept stage, which is currently being carried out in Yorkshireno coincidenceindicates that the gateway is providing a valuable additional service. We are expecting to pilot the gateway early next year, and when operational, we hope that it will be able to relieve some of the pressures currently facing citizens advice bureaux and others. We have focused in the first instance on telephone advice as it is a particularly cost-effective means of providing advice, accessible to large numbers of people easily, with no geographical limitation. Evidence from the evaluation of the National Debtline made it clear that while most people would prefer to access face-to-face advice, 85 per cent of those who use telephone advice are satisfied with this means of providing advice. We recognize the importance of face-to-face advice for vulnerable consumers: for example, those with low financial capability skills and those needing support and representation among others. And we recognize the burdens that that places on free face-to-face providers such as citizens advice bureaux, and we are taking steps to address those.
	As announced in the 2004 spending review, the Government wish to see a significant increase in the capacity of the free face-to-face money advice sector over the spending review period. The Government will invite proposals to expand the provision of advice from potential providers and will also pilot different models of debt outreach. More detail on those proposals will be published later this year.
	My hon. Friend talked about stronger enforcement and what we are doing in that regard. The current regulatory regime has significant shortcomings, in particular with regard to the OFT's powers to pursue complaints against companies acting in a manner which calls into question their suitability to hold a consumer credit licence. The Bill will strengthen the licensing regime to regulate the modern credit market effectively in order to protect consumers. The reforms give the OFT more powers to keep rogues out of the market and to regulate businesses in the market proportionately. The new licensing regime includes: an improved standard of fitness testing, allowing the OFT to look at competence to conduct consumer credit business; the ability to impose intermediate sanctions on licensees; better powers to obtain information; and indefinite licences to be monitored routinely by the OFT. Various consumer groups have been given powers under the Enterprise Act 2002 to launch super-complaints. A super-complaint would be, for example, where the National Consumer Council brought a super-complaint against the home-collected credit sector. Citizens Advice has been given similar rights to bring super-complaints.
	A great deal of work is going on in this area. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these issues, which particularly concern her in her constituency, but which affect all Members of the House in our surgeries. It is a vital area of public policy, in which we need to get the funding regime right, in terms of how we support Citizens Advice and similar bodies. The loan shark hunter pilots that we have introduced in Birmingham and Glasgow remove those people who offer extortionate credit unfairly. The new unfair credit test will lower the hurdle, so that people can get out of unfair agreements.
	While a great deal of work is being done, there is a great deal more to be done. I hope that we can sort out the difficulties affecting citizens advice bureaux. Negotiations are taking place, as she knows, in terms of funding
	The motion having been made at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.